Background: Prisoners, due to confinement, are isolated from contact with society and access to many of the facilities, including medical care. There is paucity of data on the middle ear function of prison inmates in the English literature globally. We aimed to assess the middle ear function of prison inmates in Kaduna, Nigeria. Participants and Methods: This was a cross-sectional comparative study of prison inmates at the Kaduna convict prison. Ethical approval was obtained from the Kaduna State Ministry of Health and the Nigerian Prison Service. Prison inmates aged 18–55 years in the Kaduna convict prison with an equal number of age and sex-matched controls from the community were enrolled. Consent was obtained from the participants. Data were collected using a structured pre-tested questionnaire. Participants had a thorough physical examination of the ears. Tympanometry was conducted on suitable participants to assess the middle ear function. Statistical Product and Service Solutions version 20.0 was used to analyse the data. Results: Four hundred and thirty inmates with an equal number of controls were enrolled for the study. The mean age for the inmates and controls was 30.2 ± 7.51 and 30.4 ± 8.02 years, respectively. There were 47 female and 383 males, with a female: male of 1:8.1. Forty-six (46/397, 11.6%) of the inmates and 15 (15/423, 3.5%) of the controls had abnormal tympanograms on the right while on the left, it was 12.4% and 3.8%, respectively. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (χ2 = 40.071, P = 0.0001). Conclusion: Middle ear abnormalities are more prevalent among prison inmates than the general population. Middle ear effusion and ossicular chain disruption were the most common middle ear abnormalities affecting the prison inmates.
